change

so it's silly because I cannot find my Here and Now book.

Which means my idea of including some excerpts of it, here in this blog, will not really be able to happen until I find it again. I am unpacking from a month of being away so I am hoping it reveals itself somewhere in the mess of my luggage...

luckily, there are always other things about which one can blog.


inficio - jeng ho

I found a list of "countdown to 2010" songs on a music blog I follow, i guess i'm floating. I like finding new music.

I listened to the song Bradley Bear by a band called Holiday Shores. I had never heard them before but "the underlying 50s theme that explodes into a hip-shaking ending" as well as the "contagious bass" that is "impossible to ignore" as described in its little blurb seemed too irresistible to pass up.

i am music

It is a nice little indie pop tune. I realized, though, that I listened to the bass line in the tune not only based on the songs' description but also because my boyfriend is a bass player, and when we listen to music together he talks about the bass in the music he hears. We were listening to some Kim Walker (et al.) this past week and he mentioned that he started listening to and hearing (and appreciating) vocal harmonies because I sing harmony all the time.

It has struck me lately just how we are greatly shaped by the people who we surround ourselves with. Lately I've been going to Michigan and I don't always hear the (lovely) Michigan accent in the same way I used to. I'm getting used to it! And then sometimes I come home and my friend Mike says he hears me speak with a Michigan accent with some of my words.



i NEVER really listened to the bass in songs before Jesse started talking about it.

humans pick up accents where they go because they hear words pronounced a certain way for so long that it begins to be normal.



isn't that interesting?

a new beginning

It is a new year! And you can count on me for an earnest journey seeking purpose, finding my way in this world. Being painfully self-aware and on the internet, no less. I mean, I don't know how else to be, really.

I received the book 'Here and Now' by Henri Nouwen from my (foster) parents for Christmas. It is a great little book of meditations and reflections. So I have decided that for the next little while, I am going to put them up here. They aren't too long, either.

from the chapter, Living in the Present

One: A New Beginning

A new beginning! We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to a voice saying to us: "I have a gift for you and can't wait for you to see it!" Imagine.

Is it possible that our imagination can lead us to the truth of our lives? Yes, it can! The problem is that we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us: "You know it all; you have seen it all, be realistic; the future will be just another repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best you can." There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears a great lie: "There is nothing new under the sun ... don't let yourself be fooled."

When we listen to these foxes, they eventually prove themselves right: our new year, our new day, our new hour become flat, boring, dull, without anything new.

So what are we to do? First, we must send the foxes back to where they belong: in their foxholes. And then we must open our minds and our hearts to the voice that resounds through the valleys and hills to our life saying: "Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is 'God-is-with-you.' I will wipe away all tears from your eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past is gone."

We must choose to listen to that voice, and every choice will open us a little more to discover the new life hidden in the moment, waiting eagerly to be born.